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Contact Your Members of Congress Sample Letters to Members of Congress
Sample letter to Members of the House of Representatives
Sample Letter to Members of the Senate (date) The Honorable (Senator’s name) (address) Dear Senator _______________: (your company’s name) is a (manufacturer, distributor) in (our state). Our employees live and work in (our state) to produce and sell products that are used by dentists and other oral health professionals to treat patients in this district and across the nation. We ask for your review of a provision contained in the “Health Care and Education Reconciliation Bill of 2010” that provides for an excise tax of 2.3% on dental devices. Expanded oral healthcare was considered in early discussions on health system reform, but was dropped because of the cost of covering all our citizens. While dental services were dropped from the legislation, the tax remained. This new excise tax on the manufacture and sale of dental products would far exceed any additional revenue or profit generated by provisions in the law to increase access to dental care. Using data from the Department of Health and Human Services we estimate that the tax could be 70 times the potential benefit to the industry Because the tax is disproportionate to any increase in revenue for the industry it effectively causes the dental industry to subsidize markets for devices serving the medical market. Additionally, this tax represents a substantial portion of the profit generated by dental device companies which could hinder their ability to continue to invest in R&D and other efforts to improve access to care, and could affect our ability to maintain domestic manufacturing capacity. Finally, any increase in the cost of dental care may negatively influence patient decisions to seek oral healthcare services. I would be happy to discuss this issue further or to provide more information to you or your staff. Thank you for your consideration of this important issue. Sincerely, (your name) |
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